Shelving this book even though i'm about 100 pages shy of finishing it. Clark does justice to an incredibly dense topic, but there is just so much information, dates, names and events included in every page that was extremely difficult for me to keep track of who was who and what had happened.

Whilst I found this book a very difficult read (due to lots of information and complicated European names), I found it very interesting and incredibly eye opening. I'm fascinated by both world wars, but I really had no idea just how complicated the beginnings of WW1 were. It really has changed the way I look at the different countries involved. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in WW1.

Have some patience with this book and you'll be rewarded with an understanding of the full complexity of how WWI started in the summer of 1914.

There were dozens of ministers, ambassadors, and diplomats, not to mention rulers, who made each incremental decision and policy shift leading to the war, and at times it's hard to keep them all straight, especially when a Russian minister has a German or French sounding name, and vice versa.

Popular history and historical fiction blames Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany for the decision to go to war. That's a mistaken impression, which was bolstered by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which placed the blame at Germany's feet, and called for reparations. In truth, there was enough blame to go around. First, the Serbian assassins who killed Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, then Austro-Hungary's overreaching demand to Serbia, then Russia's opportunism, etc.

This book won't give you a whole history of the conduct of the war, just the background of international relations of the previous fifty years, and the events of 1914 and the cacophony of decisions that led to the war in those heady summer months.

Highly recommended for people who want to understand why.

Having known pretty much nothing about WW1 prior to this besides "trenches and mustard gas bad, Serbians shot the Austrian prince, then everyone fought??", this was very interesting. I still know very little about WW1, but a lot about the things before it broke out, which is what this book focuses on. The author convincingly demonstrates that it was, essentially, a hot mess - which makes for a more or less interesting reading depending on which events and people you are interested in. I definitely sleepwalked through parts of the book, but it was worth it. The conclusions in the last ten pages summarise the thesis more succinctly to drive the point home.

If this was a movie plot, people would say it is unhinged, convoluted, and implausible. Yet here we are.